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Julia
“Earth to Naomi.”I waved a hand in front of her as she sat across from me at the table on the lanai, mouth agape, eyes wide.
While she was certainly curious about who sent me desserts and left only a phone number, judging by the surprised look covering her expression, she didn’t expect to hear that I not only ran into Surfer Boy Chris when I went for a midnight stroll, but that we also spent the night drinking wine on the beach before he walked me back here, leaving me with a kiss that still made my body hum.
“Are you okay?”
“Sorry.” She waved me off, snapping back to reality. “Let me just pick my jaw off the ground here.” She pretended to do precisely that, then leaned toward me, expression still showing evidence of her utter shock. “I still can’t believe it, considering how adamantly you’ve refused to get involved with any member of the opposite sex for the past several years.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what came over me.” I sipped on the crisp, white wine I opened to go with the ahi tuna salad I’d made us for lunch. “It helps we don’t know each other’s real names.”
Her eyes bulged even more. “You don’t?”
“Nope. He calls me Belle because—”
“Your accent. Already figured that one out. And you call him Chris because he looks like Thor,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Although I think he’s more Liam than Chris, but that’s me.”
She’d noticed the resemblance at the restaurant when I shared how I knew the brooding man looking at me from the bar. I thought I was doing the polite thing by approaching him, thanking him for his help, never to see him again.
Boy, was I wrong.
“Yes.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “And also because of his accent.”
She sucked in a breath. “You don’t mean…”
I slowly nodded, confirming her suspicions.
“Oh, you bitch. Not only does he look like the Hemsworth brothers, but he sounds like them, too?”
“Sadly, yes,” I teased.
I’d learned a great many things about Naomi during our friendship, including her love for Australian accents. At first, I didn’t understand the pull.
Until I heard Chris’ voice.
It did things to me.
Hedid things to me.
“Okay. Please sleep with him.” She clasped her hands in front of her chest, eyes imploring. “For me. For all women, happily married or not, who will never experience the rush of having sex with a stranger at forty, especially a twenty-seven-year-old Australian gift from the gods. It’s like the big guy or girl upstairs handed you an Adonis on a silver platter.”
“Or an apple to tempt me into doing something I shouldn’t,” I argued, clarity breaking through the fog his kiss had left me in.
“I would not turn down an apple that juicy, even if it was forbidden. I’d sink my teeth in and not let up until I savored every last drop. And I do mean every. Last. Drop.”
I cut through the ahi and took a bite. “It was a moment of weakness.”
“Moment of weakness, my ass. If you ask me, this is exactly what you need. I understand your reluctance to get back out there because of everything you went through with he who shall not be named. But he doesn’t get to control you anymore. He doesn’t get a say in your life. Doesn’t get to dictate your every move. And by refusing to choose yourself first, that’s what you’ve allowed him to do.”
“I have not,” I protested, although my voice lacked conviction.
It didn’t matter my ex-asshole was no longer physically part of my life. I still felt the weight of his control on a daily basis.
“You are. And I’m not saying that because I want you to finally get laid again, although I absolutely do.” She reached across the table and clutched my hand in hers. “I’m saying that because I love you and want you to have everything you desire in life. And if that just so happens to be a bunch of amazing orgasms from an Australian hottie, I will whole-heartedly support this new…business venture.”
I stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing, the unease that always crept through when talking about my ex slowly fading.
“I appreciate your support.”
